


Narnia Ain't Got Nothing On This

by stevergrsno (noxlunate)



Series: Happy Steve Bingo Fills [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Attempt at Humor, Creature Fic, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fae & Fairies, Happy Steve Bingo, Humor, M/M, Not Actually A Closet Monster Bucky Barnes, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, References to Child Abduction, because fae, ish, playing fast and loose with lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 19:11:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16290176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlunate/pseuds/stevergrsno
Summary: “I can’t keep calling you Maybe-Maybe-Not A Closet Monster in my head. Give a guy a hand here.”The Maybe Kind Of Attractive, Maybe Also A Monster That Could Eat Him seems to consider this for a moment, and then says “Buchanan,” in the manner that someone might say ‘Sure, I’ll go swimming in that vat of acid, sounds great.’“Like the president?”“Sure?”“Great,” Steve says, “That’s great. Well, if you’re not gonna eat me or anything I’ve got like two hours to finish a paper that’s only half done, so I’m just gonna go ahead and do that?”Aka sometimes the magical thing you find in your closet is a whole lot less Narnia and a whole lot more Suspiciously Attractive Closet Monster.





	Narnia Ain't Got Nothing On This

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to yet another romp involving magic and also roommates. I'm sure it's not what anyone expects when they think of the Happy Steve Bingo prompt "letters" and yet here we are. Please go forth and read and enjoy because I certainly enjoyed writing it!

The letters start the beginning of Steve’s junior year, though Steve doesn’t really take notice of them until a month or so in. They wouldn’t be weird, except for the fact that Steve’s moved out of the dorms and into his own apartment this year.

Also the fact that he keeps finding them _in_ his apartment. Yeah, that part is pretty weird.

Even weirder is the _contents_ of the letters.

They’re always little reminders, things like _‘you need more milk’_ or _‘Russian History assignment due Tuesday @ 9.’_ Things that, if they weren’t written in a neat, looping handwriting that is very much _not Steve’s_ would read like notes he’s left himself.

He thinks he should be at least a little more freaked out. This seems like the kind of thing that signals a haunting or a demonic possession in the building. It’s definitely the kind of set up that would work for a horror movie, with Steve as the somewhat endearing but ultimately naive white guy who gets killed early on, but honestly, he’s in his third year of college and he’s just _too tired_ to really worry about it. Especially when the little notes are genuinely helpful.

 _‘Brave Carter Library for research project.’_ is written on a scrap of paper and sitting on his counter when he gets home, which _thank god._ He’d been making plans to do just that last night and then fallen asleep and _completely forgot_ when he’d woken up in the morning.

He grabs his things from where he’d just set them and does just that.

 

Three hours later he stumbles back in, juggling a stack of books, a cup of soup from the caf and his keys.

There’s also a scrap of paper being slid under the door.

Of his closet.

Which, _weird,_ but not really any weirder than Steve’s life usually is in the grand scheme of things.

Still, it’s enough of a curiosity that Steve dumps his stuff on the counter, crosses the room and snaps the closet door open.

There’s a noise that Steve can only describe as _whooshing,_ as a vaguely human form crumples and is replaced by a pile of laundry on Steve’s closet floor.

“Those aren’t my clothes, idiot. Try a little harder next time.” Steve says, which is maybe, just _maybe_ not what one says to their apparent shape shifting closet creature. Steve’s not sure he’s ever, a day in his life, said what he’s supposed to though.

This time there’s no whooshing noise, instead the pile of clothes unfolds itself into a _person._

Kind of.

 _Kind of_ a person. Mostly a person, if one discounts the sharpness of his face, the frankly unnaturally bright blue eyes that are watching Steve intently, and the left arm made up of scales that ends in a sock.

The creature shakes it’s left arm and the sock shakes itself into a hand, which is. Relieving? Yeah, relieving. He can’t imagine living with a sock for a hand.

“So you’re some sort of closet monster?” Steve asks, some distant part of him wondering why he’s not _running._

“Something like that.” The closet monster says, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks like a normal person aside for the scales. And the eyes. And the _everything_.

Okay, he absolutely _doesn’t_ look like a normal person, but if you took away all those things he might. Maybe.

“That’s not an answer.” Steve says, _still_ not freaking out. Huh, maybe college has officially broken him. If he wasn’t sure it’d make him sound crazy he’d be calling Sharon to tell her right away.

“Nope.” The maybe-maybe-not a closet monster says.

“Cool, cool, that’s reasonable.” Steve says, dry as the desert. “You’re the one leaving the notes?”

“You’re kind of a mess. You don’t remember anything.” Maybe-Maybe-Not A Closet Monster says.

MMNCM? No.

Scary Hot Closet Dweller? No, not a good name either.

“What’s your name?”

“ _What.”_ Possible A Demon, Possibly A Closet Monster asks, tone flat and eyebrows drawing down in an almost comical look of confusion.

“I can’t keep calling you Maybe-Maybe-Not A Closet Monster in my head. Give a guy a hand here.”

The Maybe Kind Of Attractive, Maybe Also A Monster That Could Eat Him seems to consider this for a moment, and then says “Buchanan,” in the manner that someone might say _‘Sure, I’ll go swimming in that vat of acid, sounds great.’_

“Like the president?”

“Sure?”

“Great,” Steve says, “That’s great. Well, if you’re not gonna eat me or anything I’ve got like two hours to finish a paper that’s only half done, so I’m just gonna go ahead and do that?”

“Right, uh, go ahead.” Buchanan says, stepping back a little further into his closet.

“You don’t have to turn back into a pile of clothes if you don't want to.” Steve offers, already pulling out his laptop and debating whether or not he has the time to put a hot pocket in the microwave.

Which is how Steve ends up with some sort of closet monster/possibly a demon/possibly something Steve’s never heard of sitting on Steve’s couch, reading the kindle his mom gave him for Christmas while Steve bullshits a paper and burns the hell out of his mouth with a hot pocket.

 

“Are you not going to make me leave?” Buchanan asks a few days later.

“What? Why?” Steve had woken up that morning with a post-it note stuck to his forehead, Buchanan’s looping scrawl telling him he needed to buy more almond milk. There’s no way he’s getting rid of him now, the man’s practically a walking to-do list. Steve’s starting to think he’d have fallen apart entirely without all the reminders.

“I somehow doubt that the terms of your lease included a surprise roommate.” Buchanan says, his tail- which Steve thinks he should be excused for not noticing the first time they met _thanks-_ snapping past him on the couch to steal the remote.

 _“Cheater.”_ Steve says as Buchanan smugly changes the channel from Steve’s History Channel documentary to Keeping Up With The Kardashians. “Also, the landlord doesn’t know you were living in the closet-”

“I wasn’t living in the _closet_ , closets are just-”

“-does he? Because if so that’d explain the price for rent.”

“-good crossing spaces… And no, of course he doesn’t.”

“Great, so he just keeps his prices suspiciously low for no reason. Good to know.”

“I mean, maybe not _no reason.”_ Buchanan says and Steve narrows his eyes suspiciously, even if part of him is wondering if he can get the remote and change the channel if he’s quick enough.

“Were you terrorizing tenants?” Steve asks, hoping that the judgement in his tone will distract Buchanan enough that he sets the remote down.

“No!” Buchanan practically squeaks, which is an interesting noise to hear from the apparently magical creature who’s holding both Steve’s tv _and_ his kindle hostage. “Some people just _possibly_ get a little bit nervous when perfectly normal things like power flickering and strange thumping noises happen.”

“What _are_ you? Demon? Poltergeist? _Beetlejuice_?”

“Sure.” Buchanan says, shrugging.

Steve groans and slides off the couch while on his tv Kourtney Kardashian chases Kim K around in an attempt to rescue her stolen dog.

 

When Steve gets home from study group Clint’s sitting on his couch, eating a bowl of macaroni and cheese and watching the Disney channel with Buchanan.

Who looks perfectly normal. Not a tail or scale in sight.

“I didn’t know you got a roommate.” Clint says around a bite, his eyes never leaving the tv as a wacky family and their wacky antics plays out on screen.

“It’s a new development.” Steve says as his brain reboots from the shock of seeing Buchanan looking so _normal._

And kind of handsome.

More than _kind of_.

Jesus christ, his closet monster roommate is _hot._

“This is a studio, where does he even sleep?” Clint asks, which _really_ Clint? _This_ is the time he chooses to ask the sensible questions?

“The couch.” Buchanan answers before Steve can even think to flub an answer. It’s a lie, because Buchanan _doesn’t_ sleep. Instead, Steve’s learned to fall asleep to the sound of late night infomercials and has even managed to not freak out when he catches sight of nearly glowing blue eyes shining in the dark while he stumbles to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

When Steve crosses behind the couch to reach the kitchen in hunt of leftover mac and cheese Buchanan slaps a post-it note to his shoulder without looking away from the tv. The tiny children are launching things at people from a treehouse. Steve hopes for probably the thousandth time that Buchanan doesn’t get his model of human behavior from tv.

 _‘Buy more milk’_ is scrawled across the note.

“Did you really come over just to use all my milk?” Steve asks Clint.

“Yep. We were out. You get mac and cheese out of the deal though.” Clint says, which is a fair point. Steve needing to go to the store later is really just a problem for future him when faced with present him not needing to cook now.

“Fair trade.” He says as he scoops the last of the pasta into a bowl, then climbs over the back of the couch to sit with Clint and Buchanan and watch the Disney Channel at 2 in the afternoon on a Sunday.

“College is weird.” He says after the show with the wacky family ends and is replaced by yet another show with yet another wacky family.

“Sure is.” Clint agrees, unaware of _just how_ weird it truly is.

At least Steve thinks he’s unaware. If Clint turns out to have a closet monster of his own they’re going to have some serious words later.

 

December rolls around and with it comes the bitter cold and a steady diet of Christmas movies with Buchanan.

“You wanna come with me for Christmas? Or are you like, I don’t know, bound to this land or something?”

Buchanan gives Steve the look that means he thinks Steve’s just said something _unbearably_ stupid but he’s not going to call him on it.

“I’m Jewish.” Buchanan says, which isn’t an answer. And also begs the question of how a closet monster is _Jewish_.

Steve has an image of a whole family of Buchanans lighting a menorah. It’s strangely adorable, and also probably factually incorrect.

He very carefully doesn’t think about whether Buchanan has, or had a family, or whether he just sprung up as a fully formed entity in Steve’s closet.

“So? We’re only vaguely Catholic but that doesn’t mean Ma and I don’t gorge ourselves on Christmas turkey and everything peppermint.” Steve says instead of letting his imagination run wild. “So, you wanna come or not? If you wanna stay here and spend a week without me, binge watching Christmas movies and eating all my food, I won’t judge.”

Buchanan seems to consider it for a long moment, so long in fact that Steve’s about to tell him nevermind and go finish what assignments are left before break. Finally, he says “Yeah, sure, I’ll come.” And then, because apparently he _does_ occasionally function like a normal human being despite the well, not being a human thing, he asks, “Your Ma won’t mind right?”

“Nah, she’ll love you.” Steve says, feeling his smile curve a little bigger to match the one Buchanan gives him at that.

 

Sarah Rogers does, in fact, absolutely adore Buchanan.

He introduces himself as Buchanan Barnes, the last name a new bit of information for Steve, and then drops another bomb when Sarah scrunches her nose and says “Dear, that’s a very nice name but also a bit of a mouthful and quite a lot to put on your stocking. You wouldn’t happen to have a nickname you go by.”

Buchanan smiles like Sarah has just asked him if he wants a fully paid trip to Aruba and says “Bucky,” which Steve thinks he likes a whole lot better than _Buchanan._

It certainly seems to fit better at least.

 

“You could have told me you had a boyfriend.” Steve’s mom says once she’s dragged Steve into the kitchen to ‘make them all tea.’

They never do _tea,_ what the _hell?_

“Because he’s not my boyfriend.” Steve says as he opens up four different bags of Trader Joe’s cookies and starts piling them onto one of his ma’s special Christmas platters. It’s shaped like a Christmas tree and it says _‘Season of Sharing’_ across the bottom. It’s ridiculously corny and Steve _loves it._

Steve’s favorite of all time is the one with carolers painted on it, all their mouths in hysterical little ‘o’s, and _‘Make The Yule-tide Gay,’_

“You know I don’t care if he is. You dating men has never been a problem for me sweetheart.”

“I know Ma, but he’s not.”

“Right, you expect me to believe that you’re living with another man in a studio apartment and you’re not dating him.” Sarah Rogers sounds _patently_ disbelieving, and she’s fixing Steve with a look that very clearly conveys how big an idiot she thinks her one and only child is.

Steve would like to say he’s not used to this particular look, but, well, he’s done a lot of dumb shit in his life.

“Yes. Because that’s literally exactly what I’m doing.”

“Right, _riiight._ If you’re not ready to define your relationship Steve, that’s perfectly alright. People do all sorts of things these days.” Sarah says and pats at Steve’s head sympathetically before she’s shoving a tray with three cups of tea on it into his hands and nudging him back towards the living room.

 

Christmas dawns bright and early and marks the appearance of Bucky shaking Steve awake while wearing a jauntily perched elf hat.

Steve blinks blearily, murmurs “Not a closet monster, a C _hristmas elf,”_ and then closes his eyes to drop right back off to sleep.  

“Your ma said I could come wake you up. It’s _Christmas.”_ Bucky says, like this is brand new information that Steve didn’t know before, and that demanded he be awake at whatever ridiculously early time it is.

Steve could be _sleeping._ Steve _likes_ sleeping.

“It’s a yearly thing, I’ll catch it next year.” Steve mumbles and shoves his head under his pillow because apparently just closing his eyes isn’t an effective message.

Bucky, who is a _terrible_ friend and a _horrible_ roommate yanks the pillow off of him and throws it across the room.

“ _Christmas._ I’ve never celebrated Christmas before Steven, would you want to take _Christmas_ away from some poor neglected closet monster?” Bucky asks because he’s the _worst._

Steve gives in and follows the _demonic entity_ that is Buchanan Barnes to the living room. He’s only human after all, and no human can withstand that level of guilt tripping.

 

Steve will take it to his grave, but the early wake up is worth it.

Bucky’s face as he goes through his stocking while eating Sarah Rogers’ Famous Apple French Toast is priceless, lighting up more and more at every item he pulls out until he reaches the bag of chocolate coins at the bottom and his smile turns so bright that Steve thinks maybe they could use him to power all of Manhattan.

Steve’s ma takes a million pictures, forces Steve into an elf hat to match Bucky and treats the whole thing with the same exuberance she’s treated every holiday with since Steve was a kid.  

Steve wouldn’t call it the _best_ Christmas ever, because nothing will top the Christmas of 2012 when they found out that Sarah Rogers’ cancer was in full remission, but this is definitely one for the books.

 

“I didn’t know your boyfriend was a changeling.” Natasha says a week before Valentine’s Day when she descends on Steve’s apartment with Sharon to force Steve into ‘volunteering’ to spend the next week of his life making decorations for the Sisters Of SHIELD sorority’s Annual Valentine’s Day Ball.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Steve says, the words coming out on automatic even as his brain processes three things.

  1. Natasha has somehow gone the past semester without ever setting foot in Steve’s apartment and meeting Bucky.
  2. Natasha _knows_ what Bucky is, which is something Steve has spent _months_ not being able to pry from Bucky’s cold, scaly grasp.
  3. Bucky looks gobsmacked and Sharon looks like this is exactly the kind of behaviour she expects out of her girlfriend.



“You didn’t know? _Oops_ .” Natasha says in the way that means it was absolutely _not_ an oops.

To which Sharon says “Be _nice_ Tasha.”

And Bucky hisses, _“Vila,”_ like it’s the gravest of insults.

Steve didn’t freak out when some strange entity was leaving notes around his house. He didn’t freak out when that entity turned out to be some sort of closet monster or possible demon. He didn’t freak out when that closet monster came home with him at Christmas and wooed his mother.

He is maybe, possibly, _just a little bit f_ reaking out _now._

“Shit, Steve, where’s your inhaler?” Bucky asks, already reaching for Steve and his pockets before Steve even realizes that the tightness in his chest is an oncoming asthma attack. He produces an inhaler from Steve’s front left pocket and shoves it at Steve’s mouth unceremoniously, waiting until Steve snatches it away from him to back up again.

“You found me in your closet and this is what freaks you out?” Bucky asks once Steve’s depressed his inhaler twice and is breathing easy again.

“I’m not freaking out.” Steve insists.

Sharon gives him her most disbelieving look and says, “Right, that didn’t look like freaking out _at all.”_

Bucky, the _traitor,_ looks grateful.

“You can discuss this all while paper macheing and painting three dozen heart centerpieces.” Natasha says as she shoves a bag of supplies into Steve’s lap.

 

“I’m on an art scholarship.” Steve says like it’s somehow a reason he shouldn’t be sitting in his apartment a week before Valentine’s Day, draping gooey pieces of newspaper onto the wire base of a heart.

On the bright side Natasha had approved of the hearts being anatomically correct, so at least they’ll turn out semi interesting.

“That’s why you’re the best man for the job, Rogers.” Sharon says from her spot next to Nat.

“Also you’re the only artist I can consistently con into doing this for me.” Nat adds, grinning her sharp shark smile.

“And it’s distracting you from freaking out about my not _actually_ being a closet monster.” Bucky says, smoothing down a piece of newspaper on his own paper mache heart and looking at it with the sort of pride that new mothers give their oddly shapen newborns.

“Changelings,” Steve mutters, dipping a piece of newspaper into the glue mixture, “ _Vilas,”_ He adds under his breath as he slaps it onto the form, “Is there anyone else who has a secret magical heritage to firmly cement the fact that my life has suddenly become one of Bucky’s gay urban fantasy erotica books? Is my life about to turn into The Dragon Omega’s Best Friends Baby?”

“You’re the most dramatic person I’ve ever met in my life.” Natasha says mildly.

“You _wish_ your life was as interesting as one of my books.” Bucky mutters at the same time.

“I’m perfectly normal but you should already know that.” Sharon says, shrugging as she bends wire to make another form for Steve to use. “There’s just a level of weirdness you get used to when dating Natasha.”

“And you couldn’t have told me?” Steve asks, waving a strip of newspaper at Sharon and flinging glue mixture across the room.

“Just like you told me about you screwing Bobby Goldstein _all of senior year?”_

“Fair. Fair point. Forget I ever brought anything up.”

 

Steve gets free entry into the Sisters Of SHIELD’s Valentine’s Ball by virtue of the fact that he’s been there since 10 in the morning helping set up.

Sometimes he _deeply_ regrets befriending Sharon Carter when he was 10 years old and far too young and naive to know what sort of things she and her future girlfriend would drag him into.

On the bright side, helping set up has given him a whole Saturday out of the apartment and therefore out of the awkwardness that’s seemed to settle over the place since Natasha’s bombshell and Steve’s little freak out.

Of course, Steve should know better when Natasha and Sharon are involved in anything, because it’s only moments into the start of the party that Bucky shows up, looking perfectly normal and perfectly _handsome_ in his suit with a thematically appropriate red tie and pocket square.

When Bucky sees Steve he makes a beeline straight towards him, walking like some sort of angel of death hellbent on murder. He then proceeds to anticlimactically shove a crumpled up piece of paper into Steve’s chest and then stalks off in the direction of Natasha and Sharon.

Steve’s not sure what Bucky hopes to accomplish with those two, considering every S.O.S. event for the past two years has included Sharon starting on her mission to get Nat out of her clothes roughly twenty minutes in.

Nat’s dress has _a lot_ of buttons tonight, which Steve is pretty sure will just read as some sort of challenge to Sharon.

When Steve uncrumples the paper it says _‘TO DO LIST’_ in big letters at the top and then beneath that:

 

  * __Forgive Bucky.__


  * _Dance with Bucky._


  * _Say yes when Bucky asks you on a date._



 

Steve waits three whole minutes just to watch Bucky sweat a little, then strides across the room and shoves the piece of paper right back into Bucky’s chest.

Sharon silently drags Natasha away, even as Natasha is trying to lean closer to Steve and Bucky like they’re a particularly interesting creature in an aquarium.  

“You can’t tell me what to do.” Steve says, though it comes out a lot less bitchy than he wants it to.

Bucky even has the gall to _smile,_ taking Steve by his hand and dragging him into the mess of people curled around each other on the dance floor.

“Steve, I hate to break it to you but I’ve been telling you what to do since August.”

“Leaving me reminders to do things I already meant to do doesn’t count.” Steve insists, very tempted to be spiteful and refuse to dance with Bucky.

He’s more tempted to actually dance with the guy though, so that’s exactly what he does, sliding his arms around Bucky’s neck and doing his level best to not step on his feet too much.

“Oh, right, of course.” Bucky says like he’s simply humoring Steve, “So you had every intention of following my last to do list already?”

“Of course.” Steve says, his efforts to not step all over Bucky completely failing, “I was just gonna make you wait it out a little longer.”

It’s a lie. It’s definitely a lie. But it’s not like he’s about to admit to it.

“You’re so full of shit Rogers.”

“Yeah, and you’re the idiot who wants to take me on a date.”

 

“So, changeling, not closet monster?” Steve asks later, when Bucky’s had enough of Steve stepping all over his feet and has snagged them a table and a metric fuckton of food.

Steve might have been roped into decorating, but at least S.O.S. events almost always have pretty amazing catering.

“Yep.”

“And a changeling is what exactly?” Steve’s pretty sure he knows, considering he googled it almost at once, but he’s not sure google is a reliable resource when dealing with the supernatural.

“Fae kid who gets swapped with a human one.” So, okay, yeah, it’s pretty much what google said it was. But it’s also _so very fucked up._

“Cool, cool. _.._ So your family just _abandoned you_ and _kidnapped_ some poor human kid?” Steve’s not sure he can fight a family of fairies, but he’s prepared to go _try._

“It’s not exactly a rare occurrence.” Bucky says, shrugging like it’s _no big deal._ And then, “Wait, you’re not going to try to fight an entire realm just because of their child raising practices? Please don’t try to fight an entire realm because of their child raising practices.”

“I would _never.”_ Steve says, which is a bold faced lie and they both know it.

 

“I don’t want to be a Bella Swan.” Steve says when they’re three movies into Bucky’s truly, _truly_ terrible goal of marathoning the entire Twilight series while Steve studies for finals.

“Oh my _god.”_ Bucky says like Steve is the one committing what has to be a UN violation of some sort.

“No, I’m serious, I’m not meant for the drama of being a young adult heroine just because my boyfriend happens to be some sort of supernatural being. You’re even old as _dirt_ and gay as hell like Edward. Oh my god, I’m _Bella Swan._ ”

“I’m not _old as dirt_. How many times do I gotta tell you-”

“Yeah, yeah, aging and time works different for fae, blah blah, Underland physics, blah-”

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.” 

Steve does, though only because he’s too busy making out with Bucky to the dulcet tones of Kristen Stewart attempting to convince the world that Bella Swan is 110% completely a heterosexual.

 

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this come scream with me on [tumblr ](http://stevergrsno.tumblr.com/tagged/my-writing)


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